A Night of Desperation

Chapter 385: Dawn 1

"Teacher, you’re losing your composure..." Long Qingzi laughed uproariously.

At this moment, Zuo Yunfeng had already become deaf to all external sounds.

He held his head with both hands, his teeth clenched. The weakness of his body, the fragility of his spirit, the immense disappointment—all his efforts over a century turned to naught—every last bit of it plunged him into incomparable agony.

Standing up, he looked towards Tongning City in the distance, where Cai Jing Taoist was consuming countless specks of light, then glanced at the Pool of Ten Thousand Spirits and the Night Pool floating in the sky.

And further away, the rampaging Spirit Disaster Army on the land...

After some time adjusting, he seemed to come to terms with his own failure.

"...You’ve gone to great lengths to open so many gates, all to break free from my control. Now, the control has ended... Your fate is in your own hands…"

Zuo Yunfeng turned towards Long Qingzi; his expression twisted and restrained.

"And then, what do you plan to do?"

"Don’t be like this. Opening the gates wasn’t just the disciple’s doing. The disciple merely added to the momentum, opening a few more," Long Qingzi said with a smile.

"So now, it all ends. As you wished, I’ve failed," Zuo Yunfeng spoke. "How do you plan to conclude this?"

"Conclude... Why should there be a conclusion?" Long Qingzi took a step back and suddenly turned to leave.

"Those who survive will naturally form a new order, and those who don’t deserve to die! Hahaha!!!" His laughter echoed ceaselessly in the air.

Pfft!

Suddenly, a huge black foot descended from the sky and ruthlessly crushed Long Qingzi’s body.

Without any struggle, the gigantic foot, more than ten meters wide, crushed Long Qingzi precisely beneath it, silently snuffing out his existence.

Zuo Yunfeng dully raised his eyes to look.

Among those previously ignored black rifts in the sky, black one-eyed giants, each immensely large, were crawling out from the rifts one after another and leapt down heavily to the ground.

Hiss!

Suddenly, he darted to the left as a technique in black light activated on his body and he sprinted away at high speed.

"Teacher, where do you plan to go?" Long Qingzi’s voice came from another child’s corpse.

Zuo Yunfeng paid him no heed and accelerated towards the Night Pool suspended in the sky.

He seemed to have another plan.

He spoke of giving up, but his gaze was anything but that of resignation.

But his running speed was no match for the Black Giants.

With their two hundred-meter height, a single step could cover over a hundred meters. He couldn’t compete with that.

The next second, a giant foot, just like the one that crushed Long Qingzi, descended from the sky and viciously targeted Zuo Yunfeng.

"Scram!!" Zuo Yunfeng mustered his spiritual power and surged towards the heavens.

Over a million units of spiritual power influenced reality at that moment, transforming into a substantial thrust that violently collided with the great foot the Black Giant had stomped down.

But...

It was futile.

The purely spiritual force’s effect on reality, the strength it produced, wasn’t even enough to massage the Black Giant and was easily shattered head-on.

Fortunately, this was only a cover. His true killer move was a pure Spiritual Shock.

Hiss!

A spiritual technique pierced into the Black Giant’s mind, causing its head to throb fiercely.

Its foot, about to step down, suddenly froze mid-air as the giant body lost balance and toppled backward.

Whoosh!

Before it fully fell, the Black Giant disintegrated completely, turned into black smoke, and dispersed without a sound.

A Level Nine pinnacle Black Disaster Black Giant was actually taken down in an instant!

Zuo Yunfeng snorted coldly and sped towards the Night Pool in the distance.

Killing a Black Giant was easy for him.

But... his action of killing a Black Giant completely infuriated the rest of the Black Disaster.

One after another, the Black Giants chased after him in groups, roaring, and each took a step attempting to crush Zuo Yunfeng.

Zuo Yunfeng was not to be outdone. With one hand forming a seal, he rapidly released several attacks targeting mental consciousness.

Accompanied by the heavy footsteps, giants continued to fall and turn into black smoke.

In less than half a minute, more than a dozen Black Giants had fallen without a trace and showed no sign of regeneration.

"Truly worthy of being the world’s greatest expert!" Long Qingzi’s voice rang out again from a bird flying in the distant sky.

"But... teacher, you can kill ten, fifty, a hundred. But can you kill thousands, tens of thousands?!"

He sneered sharply, and not far behind him, the rift in the sky above where Black Disaster was, was being slowly pried open, revealing countless Black Giant heads as far as the eye could see inside.

They roared angrily, jostling each other, trying to drill into this world.

Zuo Yunfeng’s complexion turned ugly; within just half a minute, over half of his spiritual power was expended.

He could kill these Black Giants, but after each kill, he had to expend a large amount of spiritual power to construct a technique that completely erased their imprints; otherwise, they would naturally regenerate unscathed.

But this way, his power consumption would only increase more and more.

Without further ado, he stopped attacking the chasing Black Giants and chose to swiftly dodge between their legs and jumped agilely.

*

*

*

In the ruins of the forest.

Everywhere were trenches and gigantic footprints.

The Chi Xiao Sword, twisted and cracked, was silently thrust slanted into the ground.

Suddenly, a large hand gently grasped the hilt, wrapping the coarse and dirty fingers around the tassel.

With force, it pulled.

Hiss!

The Chi Xiao Sword cleaved through the earth, revealing its bent and dull damaged blade.

"My sword... that person, is here…"

The person holding the sword was pale, with one arm wrapped around a headless female corpse that was beginning to rot, paying no mind to it.

The arm that was previously broken had already healed.

With one hand holding the sword and the other embracing the corpse, he closed his eyes, roughly judged the direction, and then took a step.

Hiss!

Suddenly, a golden light descended from the sky, and a Three-eyed Dragon Man riding on clouds flew in, wielding a Golden Spear and exuding an imposing, phantom aura, lunging in this direction.

"Spiritual Domain."

The sword-wielder lifted his head, the blade raising with lightning speed.

"Heavenly Pill."

Dazzling purple light flashed, enveloping an area of a hundred meters in radius.

Soon, after more than ten seconds, the purple light faded.

The Three-eyed Dragon Man had disappeared without a trace, and the sword-wielder coughed twice, stuffing a pale golden pellet into his mouth, apparently some kind of Elixir.

As the Elixir was swallowed, his Essence Qi and spirit seemed to begin accelerating in growth.

The purple light shone again, and the person leapt into the air, chasing towards the direction of Zuo Yunfeng in the distance.

Yunchong Mountain.

Zhao Jingtang led his men carefully towards the first wave of Spirit Disaster Three-eyed Dragon Men surrounding the Array.

Behind him were the other members who had pledged their loyalty to the Seven Evil Alliance.

About a dozen people formed a fan-shaped Array, holding Seals in their hands, ready to unleash Magic at maximum speed.

That group of Three-eyed Dragon Men sat on clouds, flying back and forth around the inverted bowl-shaped Array, with no communication amongst themselves, nor any trace of individualized consciousness. Amidst the cloud cover, golden spears descended from the sky, ferociously smashing onto the surface of the Protective Shield.

The approach of Zhao Jingtang and his men made them alert.

Two Three-eyed Dragon Men turned and rushed towards Zhao Jingtang’s direction.

Buzz.

One of the Three-eyed Dragon Men’s Golden Spear shone with a blinding golden brilliance.

Ssht!

The next second, he appeared behind Zhao Jingtang.

A spear smashed down.

Its speed was so fast that it left no room for reaction.

Zhao Jingtang was no ordinary person either. In the critical moment, he didn’t have time to turn around, but the Seal he clutched loosened, and a wave of semi-transparent, invisible fluctuations burst forth from his body.

The fluctuations turned into a round grey Array Pattern, enveloping the Three-eyed Dragon Man.

At the same time, the Golden Spear struck Zhao Jingtang’s back squarely.

Boom!!

A loud noise.

The Three-eyed Dragon Man was repelled a distance.

Zhao Jingtang also had silver light twinkling on his back, with Spirit Light covering him.

Both were unscathed.

Without waiting for the others to react, both charged towards each other again.

"Spirit Realm·Grey Sound!"

Zhao Jingtang let out a low shout, and instantly, a vast expanse of semi-transparent rune ripples exploded around him.

The ripples wrapped around the Three-eyed Dragon Man, and both disappeared from sight, as if they had detached from this space.

At this moment, the other elite masters of the Seven Evil Alliance joined forces, forming an Array to resist the other Three-eyed Dragon Men.

They were not as formidable as Zhao Jingtang, one by one releasing Techniques and bombarding the surroundings chaotically.

But this was no match for the Three-eyed Dragon Men’s instantaneous stillness rule brought on by a spear strike.

Fortunately, the Spirit Light was formidable, adamantly blocking the Golden Spears, preventing the remaining Three-eyed Dragon Men from executing them instantly.

The scene became chaotic, with Magicians being struck flying out, quickly getting up and dashing back into the battlefield.

Yu Hong stood at a distance in the back, quietly observing the situation.

These Three-eyed Dragon Men were very strong, but unable to break the Spirit Light in one shot. As long they couldn’t break it in one try, it would quickly recover, reverting to its original state.

Thus, a group of masked Magicians discovered the trick: taking turns to withstand the Golden Spears and holding the line.

The rest unleashed Techniques, taking the opportunity to bombard the Dragon-men.

Such strategy indeed allowed them to hold off the remaining several Three-eyed Dragon Men.

"Apart from Zhao Jingtang, the rest... can only play a delaying role in such a level of battlefield," Qing Huang sighed standing beside Yu Hong.

He was regarded as one of their own, naturally not to be sent upfront as cannon fodder.

"It’s not bad to be able to delay," Yu Hong responded indifferently. "If they can’t even do that, then they have no value for me to spare their lives."

His eyes were fixed tightly, watching each of the Three-eyed Dragon Men’s conditions.

Just then.

The area where Zhao Jingtang was, a grey fluctuation suddenly emerged.

He and a Three-eyed Dragon Man appeared together, crashing to the ground.

The Three-eyed Dragon Man, which had been captured into the Spiritual Domain, now had bloody wounds all over its body, oozing golden blood. One of its legs seemed to have been forcibly broken, as it struggled to get up on one knee, trying to rise, but to no avail.

"Spiritual Method·Sinking Sky Finger!"

Zhao Jingtang’s right hand flicked out, pointing forward with lightning speed.

Ssht!

A grey arrow-like burst left his fingertip, shooting out and striking the third eye on the forehead of the Three-eyed Dragon Man.

Boom!!

Golden blood burst forth, and the Three-eyed Dragon Man fell on the spot, turning into a cloud of grey mist and vanishing into thin air.

Seeing this, Yu Hong nodded slightly and then turned his gaze towards the remaining four Three-eyed Dragon Men.

These were continuously wielding their spears like hitting a ball, smashing at the pledged Magicians.

As the silver light on the bodies of those Magicians grew dimmer and dimmer, they were about to falter.

Zhao Jingtang took action promptly, sharing the burden of another Three-eyed Dragon Man.

Then came another Spiritual Domain lockdown, Spiritual Method ambush on vulnerability, precisely eliminating the second Three-eyed Dragon Man.

Then the third, and the fourth...

Finally, after the fifth Three-eyed Dragon Man was completely dealt with, Zhao Jingtang sat down on the ground with a pale face, gasping for air, almost unable to move.

"There’s still that side, continue," Yu Hong said blandly, pointing in the direction of the Black Withered Woman.